Dr. Codone's Flash Tutorials - Adding Sounds
adapted from FlashKit.com
http://www.flashkit.com/tutorials/Audio/Adding_S-Eddie_Ca-19/index.php

Sound adds another dimension to your movie and is a tool used to communicate emotion.

Objectives: When you finish this tutorial, you will be able to add sound to your movie which can play continually or with restraints. Sounds may also be synchronised with your animation and interaction.

There are two types of sounds in Flash, streaming sounds and event sounds. Streaming sounds synchronise to the timeline and start playing when enough data has been downloaded. An event sound must completely download before it starts playing. An event sound must also be actively stopped.

Modifying Sound Properties
Sound, like images has degrees of compression and also a sampling rate. Both of these affect the size and quality of the sound in your final movie. You can control these sound variables by using the Sound properties dialog box (Select your sound from your library then Choose Option> Properties from the options menu in the Library Title Bar, or double click on the relevant sound in the library). If you want to affect all sounds, go to the Publish Settings dialog box (Choose File> Publish Settings and Select Flash tab).

Importing Sounds
This involves creating a layer for the sound, assigning the sound, and setting options in the Sound panel of the Frame Properties dialog box.

1. First, choose File> Import. You will see that you can import either AIFF or WAV sounds into Flash.
2. After importing the sounds, press Ctrl-L to bring up your Library and you will see your sounds already there! Sounds are like symbols in that one copy can be reused over and over again.

Adding Sound to your Movie
Now that you've imported your sound you can now add it to your movie. Think of a layer as a sound channel. You can have a many as you want and they'll combine when you play the movie.

1. Choose Insert> Layer to create a layer for your sound.
2. Click on the frame you want the sound to start and insert a keyframe.
3. Choose Modify> Frame and select the sound tab in the Frame Properties dialog box.
4. Choose the sound from the drop-down box.
5. Synchronise your sound (see explanation below.)
6. Enter a loop value (see explanation below.)

Synchronising Your Sound
Next you have to select what kind of synchronisation you want. Event syncs the sound to an event. These sounds will play from the starting keyframe to the end, totally independent of the timeline even if the movie stops. Start is similar; however, if a sound is playing and a new instance of that sound is started the old one will stop. The Stop option will stop a sound.

Stream will sync the sound to the animation. If Flash fails to draw a frame in time it will skip that frame in order to keep up with the sound. Stream sounds will stop when the movie stops and will not play longer than the frames specified.

Enter a Loop value to specify how many times to want the sound to loop. For continuous play enter a very high number. I tend to use 999.

Advanced Tips:

• To stop all the sounds from playing use the action Stop All Sounds.
• Many designers choose to place their background loops/sounds on a separate .swf file which is then loaded into their main timeline when it starts up. This allow them to stop and start music at will. Short sound fx however are best left in your main movie for ease of control.
  

Quick Reference : Adding Sound
To Import a Sound

Choose File> Import
Select File
Click OK

To Add a Sound to a Movie

Choose Insert> Layer
Choose Insert> Keyframe
Choose Modify> Frame
Select Sound Tab
Select Sound from Drop-down box
Access Sound Properties Dialog Box
Choose Option> Properties from the options menu in the Library Title Bar
Access Publish Setting Dialog Box
Choose File> Publish Settings and Select Flash tab
Modify the Sound Attributes in Frame Properties
Choose Modify> Frame and Select Sound Tab.
Event plays sound independent to timeline.
Start will stop old instance of sound when this new instance plays.
Stream will sync animation to sound, good for websites.
Loop will determine how many times sound will loop. Note: Place high value for continuous play.
Indicate Sound Options (optional)